Ensuring equal treatment for same-sex married couples

On June 26, 2013, in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. This decision has important consequences for our work.

In order to fully implement this decision, we took steps to clarify how the decision affects the rules that we are responsible for. Recently, Director Cordray issued a memo to staff clarifying that, to the extent permitted by federal law, it is our policy to recognize all lawful marriages valid at the time of the marriage in the jurisdiction where the marriage was celebrated. This aligns our policy with other agencies across the federal government.

This policy applies to all of the laws, regulations, and policies that we administer, including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Truth in Lending Act (TILA), and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). That means that when it comes to administering, enforcing, or interpreting the laws, regulations, and policies within our jurisdiction, we use and interpret the terms like “spouse,” “marriage,” “married,” “husband,” “wife,” and any other similar terms related to family or marital status to include lawful same-sex marriages and lawfully married same-sex spouses.

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